Not One Shrine: Two Food Writers Devour Tokyo by Becky Selengut & Matthew Amster-Burton

Author:Becky Selengut & Matthew Amster-Burton [Selengut, Becky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thunk Publications
Published: 2016-04-24T17:00:00+00:00

I lied about only having one regret. I have another one. I wish I had ordered some food, because the English-language menu offered options like the Stick Salad. I’m sure it is a julienned salad of one thing or another, but why think about what it really is when you can be thinking about a bowl of sticks with vinaigrette. Interested in some offensive meat? Try, if you dare, the Prosciutto Crude from Italy. Or simply a little peckish? Take a gander at the Nuts menu and perhaps you’ll be tempted by “Giant Corn,” which I’m assuming is a bowl of corn nuts but I really want it to be a four-foot cob of corn.

I swirled the last bit of bourbon around the glass and carefully tilted it towards my mouth stopping the 10-pound ice ball, just in time, before it could break my nose.

“Another?” the bartender’s eyes asked me.

“Blahhnnton’s” I slur and then drop my eyes in shame.

God damn it.

Matthew

Then we got kicked out of the bar.

Well, not right away. But still.

After my fruity yuzu drink, I ordered an Old Fashioned. Becky is not kidding about the ice cube. It’s literally a hand-carved sphere of ice, two inches in diameter, that nestles perfectly in a rocks glass.

The bartender didn’t carve it in front of us, but you can watch the process on YouTube (search for “ice ball carving”). It’s done with a chef’s knife, and glistening shards fly everywhere as the bartender hacks away. If this operation were being performed in front of me, I’d sit with my mouth open to catch the crystal shrapnel on my tongue.

The cocktail was excellent, and once I finished it, I tried to figure out how to pull off my usual habit of slurping the ice cube into my mouth and clicking it around obnoxiously. Eventually I conceded that I was not going to be able to deep-throat this thing, and settled for caressing it idly with my finger.

When Becky says I don’t have a drinking problem, she just means I have a different kind of drinking problem. My problem is, I’d love to be a social drinker, but my limit is one-and-a-half drinks, after which I get giggly, then overshare, then get sleepy. (I realize I’ve just described the entire point of drinking.) Then I have weird dreams and wake up the next day with my head feeling like a hand-carved ice ball, mid-carving process. After about three days of vacationing with Becky, I emailed my wife to complain that I couldn’t keep up with Becky in the nightlife department. This lifestyle consisted of going out for one or two drinks and sometimes staying out past 11 p.m.

After I’d finished my second drink and gotten to third base with the ice ball, we paid the check, then sat around talking like idiots for another fifteen minutes. We’d forgotten, or were too sloshed to remember, that in Japan (like many countries) when you ask for the bill in a restaurant, it means you’re ready to pay up and leave.

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